International phone options - china?

[punkonjunk1024]

So this is a pretty discussed option here, so I'll give you the facts, and any travelers/friends of/etc give me what info you've got.
Girlfriend is going to china.
I'm trying to figure out if I should get a phone, or use her phone - she's on alltel, which I think is also verizon now, and I'm having trouble finding out what their international deal is after the merger.
I have a motorola F3 bar phone thingy, too - it doesn't need to do much, that might be perfect if you guys know of a good china carrier that will let her call to america for reasonable rates. (or simcard provider that'll work on their networks)
I want to have this ready BEFORE she leaves, and am willing to accept expenses, but I want to be prepared, because stuff can get outta hand with this kinda stuff sometimes.

Googling gives a massive amount of varying information, so I'm looking for some information from first hand/close to first hand!

[elise]

Most important thing to look at first is can her phone call international , I come from the Netherlands but needed to buy a UMTS phone to call from the VS to Europe

[Anthus]

Here's what I know: Satphones work anywhere. They are really expensive though. Kinda like the "new" generation cell phone.

If she's gonna be there for an extended period of time, maybe it would not be such a bad investment, if it ends up being cheaper than phone cards, and international rates.

[Starkist]

What about Skype?

[Icey]

Skype is the best option in my opinion. If you both go online you can have text, audio, or video+audio chats. I use it to talk to friends in Switzerland and the Philippines frequently and it's great.

[Anthus]

Yeah, but isn't China like, cock-blocking the internet right now?

[elise]

If she has internet just MSN also already works great with videocalls , we use that all the time when I am in Europe
but yeah China blocks alot , better look in that first ;o)

[punkonjunk1024]

so the best suggestion so far is using some kind of hamster to call her, I'm seeing.

No, but she's not bringing her laptop, and likely will not be accessing the internet at all while she's there, and yeah, china is kind of psychotic about the censoring right now, I guess they don't permit access to wikipedia at all and such.

Satphones are goddamn expensive. :(

So. 200 bucks is about the most I want to spend on this, it's roughly a month she'll be gone. It's starting to look like a calling card or some kind of pre-pay would be the best bet, but I want it prepared and ready to go before she leaves, not after, which is quickly approaching.

[Toolie]

I might be late, but here's some advice.

I've been living in Shanghai for two years and I've used China Mobile (中国移动). Pick up a China Mobile SIM and charge up prepaid card from any Family Mart / Kedi / Alldays / dude selling one kuai baozi on the street. This might be difficult for her if she doesn't speak Chinese and isn't in Beijing / Shanghai / Shenzhen, but after some hand waving and pointing and charades it'll usually work out. Load up the SIM and then give 10086 a call and let them know you want to activate international calling. Fortunately, the people at 10086 speak Chinglish. I then prefix my outgoing international calls with 1259300 + country code + number (some sort of discount). I guess rates still end up being pretty bad, maybe 0.7元 / min, or about 10 US cents.

For incoming calls (from the US), I have a neater and cheaper solution worked out. I have a Skype number setup in the US. I pay something like $30 for six months, or somewhere thereabouts. This number is a local number in Pennsylvania. When someone from the US calls it, it forwards to the internet to my Skype account. If I don't answer on Skype or am not logged in, then it forwards it to my phone in China. Rates are ridiculously low, and though Skype is involved in the middle, it feels and acts as a normal phone-to-phone conversation for everyone involved. Unfortunately, I can't pull this in reverse because there are no Skype numbers in China yet.

And censoring isn't too bad nowadays. Wikipedia is unblocked, in Chinese and English. The big 3 (大三) of Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube remain the biggest pain in the ass blocks. Everything else is unblocked (even porn now!). If you have some technical knowhow, set up a VPN to the US on your own or use Freedur / Witopia / any other pay VPN service if you need access to those Web 2.0 apps.

[fusion]

Skype is the best option in my opinion. If you both go online you can have text, audio, or video+audio chats. I use it to talk to friends in Switzerland and the Philippines frequently and it's great.

I think Skype is the best solution.